Job description

The Director of Programs in the Office of the Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion will join a newly created unit within Boston University focused on aligning the University’s stated values regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion to its policies, practices, structures, climate, and culture. The Director will play an essential role in helping to develop institutional programs that promote a culture of inclusion, intellectual capaciousness, mutual respect, and civility. As a member of a newly created team, the Director will have the opportunity to develop a diverse slate of programs for faculty, staff, and students, and to work in collaboration with key stakeholders across the institution (ex: The Hub, academic departments—especially in relation to the University Scholars programs, schools and colleges, the HTC, the Gotlieb Archives, Initiative on Cities, Build LAB, etc.) and within the city to create an exciting, expansive, and farsighted group of programs that are in accord with BU’s founding principles and redoubled commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The Director of Programs will be responsible for creating dynamic, programming that will focus on and exalt the public exploration of challenging ideas and catalyzing stronger communities among BU’s broad range of constituents. These mutually reinforcing goals will help BU students, staff, and faculty to develop enhanced methods of engaging across difference.

In order to holistically embed programs across the University, the Director will need to be deeply steeped and expert in one or multiple U.S centered historical and theoretical frameworks related to equity, diversity, and inclusion work, and will preferably be able to expand that viewpoint to include global issues of inclusion and diversity. Drawing on humanistic and/or social science thought and research, the Director will envision, create, and implement a dynamic series of programs that tackle and address issues related gender, race, social class, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, political ideology, age, disability, justice, among others. Examples of traditional programs in the DEI space include: University reads, speaker’s series, general education-related co-curricular educational opportunities, seed grant programs, breaking bread-like programs, etc. The Director should be familiar with industry best practices and ineffective practices and guide BU’s programming initiative accordingly. Ideally, the Director of Programs will have new, integrative ideas that might help Boston University draw on its location and history. To that end: The Director of Programs will collaborate widely with constituents across the University and over time, also be able to work with local stakeholders to enact an overall programming strategy. The initiatives and programs emanating from BU’s office of the Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion should be expansive, creative, intellectually sound, interdisciplinary, outcomes-oriented, and tethered to research, best practices, and will be robustly assessed for efficacy.

Because of the nature of this position, the Director will necessarily be excited by the ability to create an entirely new range of programs. And, the successful candidate will be not only a maker, but also someone who enjoys maintaining, building, revising, and deepening programs over time. This is a start-up initiative and will require a range of skills, including the ability to multi-task, to develop an effective implementation strategy in a lean-administrative unit, and the willingness to take on large and small tasks in service of the larger goal, and provide intellectual and programmatic leadership as appropriate.

The Director must be diplomatic, strategic, highly organized, creative and tactical, visionary, relational, and, have excellent event planning skills. The Director should also have the ability to assess the efficacy of programs and be able to work with institutional research to develop longitudinal assessment.

Under the leadership of the University’s senior diversity officer, the Director will partner with key stakeholders across the University to ensure that the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at Boston University is creating impactful, measurable organizational change. To that, the successful candidate will understand the ways in which large, institutional programs can and catalyze institutional change.

Additional responsibilities will include drafting and/or editing written communications; overseeing all logistics to do with programs at the University; and overseeing a small staff of student workers. The Director will be a key strategic partner in this ongoing work of developing organizational capacity for Diversity and Inclusion and for creating and monitoring assessment mechanisms.

The Director will work as part of a team of individuals within the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Office of the Provost, and across the CRC and MED campuses. And the Director will partner with multiple additional offices, including Human Resources, Schools/Colleges, and administrative units as appropriate. To that end, the Director will provide leadership and serve as a strategic partner to not only a broad range of leaders within other units, but also diversity and inclusion practitioners embedded in the schools/colleges.

Master’s Degree from an accredited institution.

Significant intellectual training in a proximate disciplinary area

6+ years of relevant work experience.

Strong programming experience

Experience leading and managing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, preferably in a university setting.

Superb written and spoken communication skills.

Strong presentation skills.

Strong program design skills.

Preferred Job Qualifications:

Terminal degree, in related field.

Experience working in a higher education institution, with faculty, staff, and students

Strong interpersonal skills.

Demonstrated ability to work independently to meet stated objectives.

Demonstrated ability to establish and maintain collaborative working relationships.

Experience with managing budgets and fiscal processes.

We ask that you please submit a letter of interest with your application and substantively, either in the letter of interest or in a separate statement, articulate the ways in which you are aligned to the University’s commitment to becoming a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable institution as reflected in the University’s Diversity Statement.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We are a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.